Firescale
by uzumakisunspydr
Summary: A lost member rejoins the clan after a thousand years missing, and brings a bit more magic to Manhattan with her. A little AU OC character development story set after the Goliath Chronicles. Rated T for a little bit of language.
1. Chapter 1

**I am getting back to my roots a bit with this. Back before I was a rabid Stargate and anime fan, there was this little cartoon called Gargoyles that I was completely obsessed with for a time. This story has been floating around in my head for years. I had posted it a while ago, but was unhappy with it and took it off for tweaking. I think it's a little better now. Enjoy and let me know what you think.**

**I don't own Gargoyles, but Ember is mine. That's good enough.**

**Scotland-974 A.D.**

Goliath roared out of his stone sleep on his high perch. Echoing cries rose around him as the rest of his clan awoke below him. He stretched his arms and wings high over his head, enjoying the sensation of mobility after a long days sleep. On looking around that evening, the first thing that caught his attention was the females heading down to the rookery. The latest batch of eggs would be hatching any night now. He smiled to himself in satisfaction as he thought of the new members who would be joining the clan soon. The second thing he noticed was the eerie red glow on the horizon in the direction of the distant mountains. That was troubling. He couldn't begin to imagine what would be causing it.

He was about to call it to the attention of his old mentor, when a deep roar sounded from the forest at the bottom of the hill, loud enough to make the livestock below, long accustomed to the sounds and scents associated with gargoyles, start with fright. It was a voice Goliath knew well.

"Better go see what he wants, lad," the battle scarred old leader said as he climbed up the tower to stand next to the younger gargoyle. "Not one for patience is your brother."

Goliath grinned. "No, that he's not. I'll be back soon, old friend."

Goliath dove into the wind and began his decent out of the castle keep and across the cliffs to the forest. He thought of the strange relationship he had cultivated with the leader of the local dragon clan. He had met Ash many years ago, when he himself had been barely old enough to scout outside the castle. He had come across the dragon, grounded, several arrows piercing his slate colored wings, cursing about dragon slayers in language foul enough to have come from any sailor. After a short argument, in which the grumpy beast stubbornly insisted he was just fine and didn't need any help, Goliath returned to the castle and brought his clan's healer back to the injured dragon's side. Goliath had then hunted for him for several nights until he was well enough to fly. By that time, the two had struck up a friendship of sorts, which had deepened over time, mainly because Ash had taken a liking to him and would not leave him alone.

That had started his relationship with the most remarkable creature Goliath had ever met. Ash was of the Fire-Lake clan of dragons who lived in the mountains to the north. They made their home deep within the mountain range where the molten earth was near the surface. Dragons, Goliath had learned, counted their ages in centuries, and Ash had already seen nearly six by the time the two met. Though he was nearly forty feet long, in dragon terms, he was still fairly young.

And acted it much of the time.

The dragon had one of the most acerbic senses of humor the young gargoyle had encountered. He could make light of almost anything, and lived for pranks. He made it a point to bait and tease the sometimes too serious young gargoyle until Goliath would cave out of desperation and do what he wanted. Soon they were inseparable. The elder gargoyles were pleased with their friendship. Gargoyles and dragons were distant cousins, and Goliath learned a great deal about dragonkind through the association. It wasn't unusual to find the great gray dragon circling above the castle as the sun went down, waiting for Goliath to wake. Even the humans became accustomed to him after a while. (It was even said across the surrounding countryside, though falsely, that the castle took the name Wyvern after him, so common was it to see the dragon there.)

Both species were protectors. Whereas gargoyles protected their homes and the beings nearby, dragons guarded the wilds, the lonely, untouched corners of the world. Some clans were warlike and animalistic in their ways, acting on their darker natures. It was from these clans that the legends of evil dragons originated. But most clans were peaceful, dedicating their long lives to studying other races and cultures. Avid shape shifters, dragons were required to accumulate other forms as soon as they were old enough to learn how. After mastering a form, the young dragon was then required to spend a year as that being, learning about their ways and lives.

Once he acquired gargoyle form, Ash spent a year with Goliath's clan, getting himself (and usually Goliath) into mischief constantly and making the elders question why they had been so happy about the young dragon's presence in the first place. The two had sworn blood brotherhood that year at Ash's insistence. By that time Goliath felt like he had known the dragon forever and readily agreed. He had turned into the best friend he had ever had, and somewhat of a kindred spirit, for under all of his flippancy, Ash also lived to protect.

Then, the year Goliath had been made leader, Ash had disappeared for several months. Goliath had been in a constant state of worry until he came winging cheerfully back over the mountains. Things had changed. Ash's sire had died at the ripe age of ten thousand years, and Ash was now the leader. Though both were busy with their duties, at least once a week a roar would summon Goliath outside the castle and the two friends would catch up. Like tonight.

Now, Goliath was wondering what this night would bring. He would have to ask about that glow to the north. Ash would surely know what it was, for it had to be close to their caverns. Goliath glided down to the large clearing that had become their favorite meeting place.

What met his eyes as he landed horrified him.

Ash lay in a bloody, tangled heap, his usually graceful form held stiffly and painfully. Deep jagged wounds ran over his sleek, gray dappled sides, and there was a wet quality to his breaths as his sides bellowed. The soft loam of the forest floor was already saturated with blood.

"Ash! Brother, what has happened? What did this to you?"

A dull green eye opened and focused with difficulty.

"Hello Goliath," the deep voice rumbled." I must look a sight."

The dragon shifted his head so both eyes could pinpoint Goliath's voice. A terrible set of claw marks raked over his armored brow ridge and over his left eye. At fifty feet long, with a seventy foot wingspan, as well as over fifty other forms, Ash was one of the most powerful clan leaders in the isles. Goliath couldn't imagine what or who had been able to bring his mighty friend to such a state.

"The Long-lake clan has been eyeing our territory for a few years, and finally decided to do something about it. They're meatheads, but they also outnumber us three to one. Unbeknownst to us, they've been breeding up their numbers for the past several centuries." Ash chuckled weakly, then coughed. "I guess we believed in quality over quantity a little too much. They attacked three days ago and now our mountains are burning."

The green orbs began to close, and Goliath placed a gentle claw on Ash's shoulder. "Stay awake my friend, until I go get a healer."

Ash shook his great head. "No time. I need to get back. I took too much of a chance leaving as it is, but I had to. I have a request, brother. If you do this for me, I will be forever in your debt."

Goliath watched as the dragon slowly got his hind feet under him and pulled himself up to crouch stiffly. It was then he noticed the basket resting on the ground against Ash's side. A shaking claw snagged it and he pulled it almost delicately over to Goliath's feet. Inside, wrapped in a thick layer of hides, was an egg. Goliath looked at it, then at his brother. "What…?"

"Goliath, my mate is dead. She died to save our egg while I was above fighting. Our cave was targeted by five dragons, but she fought like a demon and left the bodies of our enemies strewn across the floor. She bled out before I could get to her." Ash closed his eyes painfully, but when they opened, they were clear and focused. "We chased our enemies from our home, but they won't stay away for long. Please, I know you have eggs ready to hatch in the rookery. Please raise mine with them. I don't know how long this feud will go on, but if I know my daughter is safe, I can fight to the end."

Goliath responded to the anxiety in his brother's voice the only way he knew how. "Of course I will raise your hatchling. It would be an honor. But once I take the egg to the clan, I will come back and fight at your side."

Ash chuckled, which turned into a cough that sprayed the ground with dark red blood. "I would expect nothing less from you Goliath, a warrior to the core, but I could not in good conscious let you do that." He raised a claw as Goliath started to speak. "My friend, as mighty as you are, you would stand little chance against the monsters I must face. These are the dragons men fear and tell stories about around their campfires at night. Many are fully as large as I, though they have little imagination for shape shifting. That will be their eventual downfall." He looked down at Goliath, a familiar toothy grin starting to spread across his jaws." We will win, but I can only focus if my egg is safe."

Goliath growled to himself. Ash was right. His mind was creating terrible images of what a dragon war would look like, and knew he would be swatted like a gnat if he went against an army of fifty foot giants. "Very well brother, I will guard your young and my clan will raise her for as long as you need. But if there comes a time when you do need me, send for me and I will come, no matter the danger."

Ash sighed, as if a mighty weight had been lifted from him. "I promise I will." He stood and spread his wings. "You know about my kind well enough. Teach her to be a dragon. I will return for her when the fighting is over." And with that Ash launched himself into the air with more vigor that Goliath would have thought him capable of at the moment. In a matter of minutes he was gone, leaving one sorrowful and slightly bewildered gargoyle staring at one rather large egg.

Goliath had faith in Ash's strength and intelligence, but he couldn't help but wonder if he would ever see his brother again. He shook his head sadly and gently grasped the rough basket in his arms. He had a bit of a walk before he would come to a place high enough to glide from.

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A low hum echoed from the rookery as the eggs rocked and cracked. This was always a momentous occasion for the clan, but this time things were a little different, as many eyes rested on the slightly larger slate colored egg in their midst. The females of his clan had been surprisingly receptive to the idea of the large egg lying among the others. An egg in need was an egg in need, and the entire clan knew how their leader felt about his unusual blood brother.

Suddenly the first egg cracked wide open and a hatchling tumbled out, looked blearily around, and immediately started to howl. The watching gargoyles chuckled as one of the females gathered the hatchling up in her arms and started to comfort the little red male with the shock of white hair. After an hour of waiting, all the eggs had hatched, except the gray one. Then it suddenly gave a violent jerk and it split neatly in half. The clan murmured to each other. This was a strong one. The infant dragon opened green eyes, gazed at the figures standing around, and meeped wistfully. Goliath, ever the protector but a rather awkward caregiver, stepped forward and gingerly gathered the dragonet in his arms. She settled trustingly in his embrace. She wasn't the color of stone like most of her clan, but rather the color of flame. Deep red ran down her spine and bled into orange on her sides, which in turn faded to gold on her belly. "Firescale" was the first word that ran through Goliath's head, and so it became her name. He hoped Ash would approve.

But as time went on and the dragonet grew into a personality much like her sire's, they just called her Ember.

**994 AD**

"**What have you done!"**

The old captain of the guard bravely didn't flinch as Goliath roared out his rage and grief at finding his clan nothing but piles of rubble on the battlements of Castle Wyvern. "Believe me when I tell you, I didn't mean it to end this way. The damn Vikings went back on their word. I couldn't stop them. "

Goliath dropped the man from where he had been suspended in the air from his claws. He gazed at the scene of massacre around him. All dead, killed in their sleep when at their most vulnerable. Even his beautiful Angel. All dead save his old mentor, the trio of youngsters who had been hidden in the rookery and the clan's dog-like beast.

Wait.

Goliath wrapped his claws in the captain's leather jerkin and yanked him up again. "Ember! Where's Ember?"

The captain's face fell. He had been fond of the young dragon. "Hakon knew she guarded you during the day, and hired himself a few would-be dragon slayers. Brave lass, she fought like a right devil. I tried to save her, truly I did. The last I saw her, she went over the cliff with a dragon lance in her chest, but she took quite a few with her before she fell."

Goliath ground his teeth. He had failed. Failed his clan, his protectorate, and his promise to his brother. All because of the foolishness of a handful of humans. Goliath sent an anguished look to the west wall. It was a sheer drop to the ocean on the other side. Ember couldn't of survived that. Though a formidable fighter, at only fifteen feet long and too young to shift, she wouldn't have stood a chance against an army.

Goliath shook his head as the others gathered around him. The lost expressions of the adolescents broke his heart. The red male finally voiced the question.

"Goliath, where's Ember?"

Goliath couldn't answer right away, and that told the youngster what he needed to know. Tears formed in his eyes and dripped slowly down his muzzle. The two had been close. Closer than close, they had been practically inseparable from the day of their hatching. Where one was, you knew the other wasn't far away. And whenever there was any kind of incident in the castle, you would usually find the both of them right at the bottom of it.

Goliath clasped the red's shoulder comfortingly. There would be time to mourn later, for now they had a princess to rescue. As the six survivors flew off to find the murderers of their clan, they did not see the shadowy gray winged shape as it hovered over the battlement for a moment, then slowly made its way over the sea toward the mountains.

**Present Day**

"How bloody hard is it to find seven gargoyles on a bloody island?"

Crimson brows scrunched over luminous green eyes as the shadowy shape continued to mutter to herself darkly. Massive claws ground into the brickwork rooftop of an ornate building in upper Manhattan. She looked down at the bits of mortar falling to the street below. The owners of this building were going to have a fit, but she just couldn't bring herself to care at the moment.

She gazed at the distant Eyrie Building. She knew the castle was there above the clouds, but was hesitant to venture there on her own. That tower had some formidable defenses, and dodging lasers and heaven knows what else didn't really appeal to her. She was cranky enough right now.

So then she had the brilliant idea to find the clan out on patrol, but that was proving a bit harder than she thought because though she had been circling this thrice blessed city for most of the night, she hadn't come across a single one of them. She had even reverted back to her original form for the added wing span and spotting ability, but this posed its own problems due to the fact that it seemed that the people of this city just weren't ready for the likes of her. Traffic accidents were taking place wherever she went.

It reminded her of that incident over Glasgow, now that she thought about it. Never lose a bet with your sire, it rarely ends well. At least that incident had been so long ago that no one who had seen her fly over the still young city with a large bull's eye painted on her underside were still alive.

She sat and scanned the skies for a while longer before a whisper of movement and some displaced air told her that she didn't have this roof to herself anymore. She flattened herself to the roof instinctively as a bolt of ..something.. shot through the space her head had just been. She whirled, a surprisingly fast and graceful movement considering she was still in all her thirty foot glory.

She looked up to see two humans carrying some sort of modified rifles. They were also wearing black body armor and hooded masks. "Umm, I take it you aren't rejects from a cosplay convention, are you?"

Evidently they weren't expecting their prey to have a rather sarcastic comment ready in a soft Scottish burr, as they glanced at each other strangely. The eyes behind their masks widened as she stepped out into the moon light. She grinned toothily.

"Expecting something a little smaller, boyos?"

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"One..two..three..four…."

"Brook, what are you doing?"

"Counting fender benders. Why?" Brooklyn glanced up as Lexington snorted. "What? It's not like there's much to do. The only thing going on right now is all these traffic accidents. What's up with that anyway, is it the full moon or something?"

Lex looked thoughtful. "I don't know. But I do know one thing."

"What's that?"

"Elisa is going to be really grouchy when she gets off tonight."

"No kidding." The two brothers chuckled at their clan sister's expense. With the high volume of accidents across the city, even the plain clothes detectives would be pulled into street duty for the night.

Brooklyn was still laughing when a beam of crackling light several blocks away caught his eye. "Hey Lex, you see that?"

"Yeah…it remind you of anything?"

"I don't know, maybe, a Quarryman laser."

"Sounds about right. We better go see what they're up to."

Brooklyn grinned evilly as they both banked toward the direction of the disturbance. "Finally, a little excitement." But as they neared the ornate roof the shot had originated from, Brooklyn couldn't help but wonder what the Quarrymen were doing out here. The rest of the clan were each patrolling their assigned sectors and were nowhere near here. So, what the hell were they shooting at?

Other shots rang out now, at almost a frantic rate. Then Brooklyn heard something he hadn't heard for a very, very long time. A low sonorous bellow, so resonant that it made the very air vibrate. Only something with a very deep chest could produce that sound. Brooklyn's heart clenched when he realized that the roar could only come from a dragon. In a lot of ways, he was still dealing with the death of his best friend. Ember had been dead for over a thousand years, but it had only been three from his point of view.

Lex dropped down to Brooklyn's altitude. "Brook! That was a-."

"Yeah, I know. Come on."

When they were several blocks away, the two gargoyles could make out the black clad forms of two Quarrymen firing wildly into the deep shadow of an overhang. They were so focused that they didn't see the two gargoyles coming up on them from above until it was too late. Brooklyn grabbed the barrel of the rifle as he landed full on his target, crushing the gun in his claw and driving the man into the tiles. Lex spun in midair, catching the other man's temple with his tail. The rifle clattered into the gutter.

"Well that was too easy, as usual," Brooklyn commented, looking around. He knew he had heard a dragon roar, so where was it? It had to be pretty good sized judging from the noise, but the shadows on this roof weren't nearly big enough to hide something that size. "Um, hello?"

A loud whoop rang out, and Brooklyn nearly jumped out of his skin as someone wrapped arms and wings around him in bear hug. The same someone was chanting "I found you, I found you" over and over again in his ear. The arms loosened, and Brooklyn found himself looking down into the merry green eyes of a lithe gargess. Brooklyn's first slightly incoherent thought was of how beautiful she was. Her abbreviated horns swept back to frame her long black hair, the tips a deep red. The red bled down from the tips of her wide wings, down her spine to the tip of her tail, though a sunny orange was her main coloring. Her eyes were captivating, a luminous green with a slightly slit pupil. What surprised Brooklyn was that she was battle scared, though she appeared to be about the same age as himself. A long scar started at the corner of her eye and swept back to join a tear in her ear. This feature was enhanced by the many gold rings that decorated the fringe of both ears.

"I finally found you I've been looking all night then these escapees from a Star-Trek convention started shooting weird shit at me so I had to shift and who the hell were they and oh my god it is so good to see you guys-"

All the while she was babbling this out, Lexington was standing off to the side with a rarely seen stupefied expression on his face, and Brooklyn was being assaulted by memories and associations. The green eyes, the coloring, the voice. She stopped speaking for a moment and looked at him expectantly. All he could do was blurt out the one word that kept repeating over and over in his head.

"Ember?"

**There you go. The first chapter of, for me, something completely different. It was good to finally get this idea out of my head, it was like a spring cleaning for the brain. Let me know what you think. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, no excuses, just got out of writing for a while. New job, new promotion and very little time to myself. But then some people favorited this story recently and it guilt tripped me into writing a new chapter. So here it is and sorry it was so long in coming.**

**I don't own Gargoyles, but Ember is mine. That's good enough.**

Goliath's wing muscles ached as he landed in the courtyard. It had been a long night, and it wasn't even half over. It was like all the drivers in the city had gone mad, crashing their vehicles into each other and anything else that didn't get out of the way. Elisa swore it was some kind of mass hysteria. Every crash victim she had talked to had babbled something about a giant gargoyle flying overhead. Goliath had to admit he was pretty perplexed about that. Most of the residents of New York knew what they all looked like by now, and many didn't even bat an eye anymore as the clan went about its business. Well, some. Not enough to cause the kind of pandemonium he had seen tonight.

He glanced around the castle. Looks like he was the first one back. Elisa had told him he might as well head home, as she would be stuck doing paperwork for the rest of the night. Whatever phenomenon had been causing the record number of "fender benders" seems to have stopped.

As he was turning to head inside, Hudson came gliding in from the north, dropping down and depositing Bronx to the flagstones. "Bronx, I'm getting too old to lug your heavy carcass around all over the city. And that's a fact."

Goliath grinned at his old friend's muttering. They heard the same complaint all the time, every time the old warrior took Bronx anywhere. And the next night, Hudson would scoop Bronx up in his arms to go patrol, and the complaining would start all over again.

"Anything to report?" Goliath asked as Hudson's muttering wound down.

"You mean besides everyone forgetting how to steer their crazy contraptions. No. Any thoughts as to what might be causing all the noise?"

"The few Elisa interviewed claimed to have seen a giant gargoyle."

"Giant? What exactly counts as "giant" to humans?"

"I'm sure I have no idea."

"I think the people in this town have finally lost their minds. What little they had left after breathing in the fumes, that is."

Goliath chuckled. He really couldn't disagree on that. They were interrupted by Bronx barking over the battlements. "Eh? What is it you great brute? It's just the lads returning. Wait. Who's that with them?"

Goliath could see the distinct figures of Brooklyn and Lexington, but as for the third he didn't recognize. As they got closer he began to think maybe Delilah was with them, but the coloring was wrong. His mind had only come up with "female" before an orange missile plowed into him, sending him off his feet and skidding across the flagstones on his tail.

As he was recovering the breath that had been knocked out of him, he became aware of the gargess sitting on his chest beaming down at him. It was her merry green eyes that brimmed with good humor that sparked a memory in him, though the rest of her was unfamiliar. He knew those eyes. He saw them whenever he thought of his slain clan, and the one special member who had died trying to protect them. "Ember?" he whispered." But it can't be. We were told you had died."

The young gargess grinned toothily down at him. "Could a ghost knock you on your bum, Goliath? I could make myself a lot heavier to prove it, you know."

It was the sheer amount of cheek in her familiar voice that convinced him.

Giddy excitement rushed through him as he rose and clasped her in his arms, spinning her around as he laughed. "Ember! My Firescale!" He set her down and studied her as she laughed with him. Now that he was looking at her properly, he could see the resemblance to Ash's gargoyle form. Two graceful horns swept back from her brows to meet at the back of her head, framing her black hair. Her bright green eyes were enhanced by the dark green cloth of her tunic. She was surprisingly petite, a few inches shorter than Angela, though her wing span was nearly as wide as his own. Ash had had the same feature. It must be a peculiarity of dragons.

But that mattered little now in his joy. "How could this be? Where have you been all this time?"

"It's a really long story, how's about I tell everyone when we're all together," she said breathlessly, trying to put her clothes to rights.

She beamed as Hudson was the next to embrace her, Bronx next to him trying to jump up on her. "It's good to see you, lass. Things just weren't the same without you."

"Likewise, old man." She quirked her eyebrow up at him from where she was kneeling to greet the exuberant Bronx. "Or Hudson rather."

Hudson scowled at her in mock annoyance. "And how did you know that, pray tell?"

Ember threw back her head and laughed. "Are you kidding? You guys are famous. I read your names in the newspaper."

"It's true," said Brooklyn. "She already knew me and Lex's."

"Wait, you have a newspaper delivered to a cave?"

Ember smirked at Lexington. "Who says I live in a cave?"

"I thought all dragons lived in caves."

"Then how would I get my internet?"

"Oh, that makes sen…, wait, what?"

Goliath felt a deep contentment as he watched Ember wind Lexington up as if they had never been apart. He had so many questions for her. He wanted to hear her story, to know what had been happening to her. He stepped aside and pulled his radio out of its pouch. "Broadway, Angela?"

His daughter's voice came to him a moment later. "Father? What's up? It's a little crazy out here right now. Something has the people acting all nutty."

"I am aware, but the two of you should come back to the castle now. Something has happened."

"Is everything all right?"

He hurried to reassure the worry in her voice. "Everything is fine, but we have received a surprise tonight. A good surprise."

"Oh, okay. We're on our way. Over and out."

Now he just needed to get Elisa here somehow. As a member of the clan, she deserved to know everything that was going on, and he couldn't wait for her to meet Ember. He had always thought the two of them would have gotten on well.

While the rest were still talking, he ducked into one of the small alcoves Xanatos had built into the walls of the castle to hold weapons and communication devices in case of emergency. He picked up a phone specially designed for gargoyle claws and pressed a button that speed dialed a number. After a few rings, someone picked up.

*You have reached the office of Bluestone and Maza. We can't come to the phone right now due to our having lost it in a pile of paperwork, but if you leave your name and phone number we will try to get back to you sometime in the next century. Thank you and have a better night than we are having.*

Then the voice went *BEEEP*

"Bluestone-"

"Oh! Hey Goliath. Sorry about that, thought you were the Chief. Let me get Elisa." There was a clunk, a muffled curse, the sound of many pieces of paper sliding, then a beloved voice apparently yelling at her partner for messing up her desk, a piece of furniture Goliath knew Elisa to be extremely territorial of.

She eventually got tired of that and came on the line. "Hi Goliath, sorry about the wait. Is everything alright?

"Everything is fine. Better than fine, in fact. How soon can you get away and come to the castle?"

She snorted. "How's next week sound? The Chief has got us doing all the write ups on the traffic accidents 'cause we don't have any cases going right now and all the street cops are still on mop up. Why, is it something important? Because if it is, I can just leave it all to Matt."

Mournful noises in the background told Goliath what Elisa's partner thought about that.

"Then don't dump half of your pile on my desk while I'm in the bathroom and think I'm not going to notice!" Elisa's voice became muffled, like she had her hand covering part of her mouth. "Please tell me it's an emergency and get me out of here."

Goliath shook his head. His friend and her partner fought like the trio sometimes.

"I would then consider it very important clan business and your presence is immediately requested."

"Great, that's all I need! I'll be there as soon as I can." Her voice faded as she began to set down the phone, but he still heard her parting shot of" See you on Monday, Partner" before the line clicked off.

Goliath was still chuckling as he stepped back out into the courtyard just in time to see Angela and Broadway land. He received a shock a moment later when Angela gave a squeal as she spied Ember and raced over to throw her arms around the slightly shorter dragon. "Ember! What are you doing here?"

Ember seemed as shocked as he was as she hugged back automatically. "Angela? How did you get here? Why aren't you on Avalon?"

The rest of the clan was goggling at both of them. Broadway got over his shock and with a shout picked Ember up and twirled her around as Goliath had. "Ember! I can't believe it's really you."

Ember laughed and hugged her rookery brother back. "Believe it, big guy."

Goliath could not contain his questions any longer. "Ember, please tell us how you and Angela are acquainted. And how you could visit Avalon."

Ember sighed and ran a claw through her hair. "Well, because I used to go to Avalon to check on the eggs. As to the other, I'm a dragon. We can go wherever we want. Like Oberon can stop us."

Angela laughed. "She used to come all the time and play with us. Sometime she was in her other form, which was really fun." She squinted sideways at the dragon." But she never told us she knew our clan. She just said she was a friend."

Ember smiled sheepishly." I didn't want to have to be the one to tell you guys what had happened that day. I left that to the princess, but told her to leave me out of the tale." Her emeralds eyes darkened with memory." At the time, it was still a sore subject."

Lexington had his thinking face on again. "How come you didn't know about Angela being here if you knew about us?"

"She wasn't mentioned in the few articles I read. They said there were seven of you, but I didn't know who the extra was." Ember looked strangely troubled by this. "I should have known. It's been so busy back home, I haven't been to Avalon in a few years. And here I was supposed to be looking after the clan." She shook her head moodily.

Angela grabbed her hand, jarring her out of her melancholy, and began to tow her to a sheltered place in the courtyard with benches scattered about, a little whimsy of Xanatos's redecorating of the castle. "Then let's all go sit down. I want to hear everything about how you knew the clan and where you've been and everything."

Goliath smiled at his daughter's exuberance. "Angela, we still have to wait for one more."

"Oh, is Elisa coming? How long until she gets here?"

Ember's brows crinkled. "Elisa? Who's that?"

Brooklyn, who had been hanging back, watching the activity with a very contented smile on his face, laughed. "Well, we figured we had a dragon in the clan, why not a human too. We kinda adopted each other soon after we woke up. Don't worry, you'll love her."

Broadway laughed. "There are a lot of people in this city who don't find her so loveable."

"Only the wrong kind of people." Brooklyn smirked at Embers confused look. "She's a cop."

He was amused to see this information didn't faze Ember a bit. She just shook her head sadly at him. "And just how long were you awake before you got in trouble with the police?"

He grinned at his best friend." Hey, it wasn't just me, and a few hours after we stole a motorcycle."

Ember laughed when Lexington and Broadway both groaned. "I can't wait to hear that story."

Brooklyn threw his arm over her shoulders. It was weird to have her a couple of inches shorter than him, as the last time he had seen her she was nearly fifteen feet long. He wondered how big she really was now. But having her like this was oddly natural. "Oh trust me; we have better stories than that."

Ember looked at him affectionately. "So do I. And mine are a thousand years in the making."

**Next time all the history comes out.**


End file.
